I've never been attacked

A:

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that violence or abuse will never impact you. Physical, emotional, psychological, financial and sexual violence are prevalent in our society, so it's important to prepare ourselves just in case we encounter a violent or abusive situation.

Physical self-defense is a life-skill that only comes in handy in a bad situation, like any other kind of emergency preparedness. You hope you will never need it, but if you ever do encounter an emergency, you will be prepared to respond. For example, you probably know to "stop, drop and roll" even if you've never caught on fire, because you learned how to do it just in case you ever do. While you hope it never happens (and indeed it's rare), you would be grateful to know what to do if you ever did catch on fire.

Impact teaches more than just physical self-defense. We teach you how to effectively set boundaries with important people in your life, and how to value your own boundaries regarding what you want and don't want. Graduates report to us that they never used the physical techniques, but they use the verbal and boundary-setting techniques every day. Others have told us that they were able to diffuse dangerous situations using just verbal techniques - because they had the confidence of knowing that they could physically defend themselves if necessary. Knowing they could physically fight back made their voices bold.

Some graduates have used the physical techniques they learned at Impact to defend themselves against physical attacks, rape attempts, muggings and other assults. They tell us that when they were attacked, their bodies just reacted with the Impact moves, their voices boomed with power, they stopped the attack, and they got to safety.

We hope that graduates of our programs never have to use the physical skills (and most graduates never do), but we're glad to know that if you were ever attacked, you would be trained to effectively fight back.

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Everyone deserves to be safe. Impact Bay Area does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical ability, financial circumstances or abuse history. We are a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to providing self-defense and empowerment training to Bay Area and Northern California communities. We welcome everyone who wants to learn personal safety and self-defense.